


Supercut

by eggpeeler



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, Coming of Age, Feels, First Love, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Growing Up, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Pining, Romance, Slow Burn, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27894424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggpeeler/pseuds/eggpeeler
Summary: “What are you doing?” Jaemin turns to Jeno, who’s sprawled all over his bed, infringing on his space as usual.“Look, Czennies really never miss a thing,” Jeno chortles as he passes his phone over.“My favorite Nomin moments Part 7?” Jaemin reads aloud, furrowing his eyebrows. “Part 7?? They actually compile everything?”“You bet.” Jeno grins. “Part 7 alone is 9 minutes long.”As both of them pore over endless scenes of Jeno’s jealous pouts and his caffeine-fuelled antics and all their illicit side-eyes, Jaemin can’t help but smile.If only they knew everything that happened since that fateful day they met, when they were but children. Everything that transpired in between, the ups and downs, the tears and all the heartbreak.Jaemin gazes over at Jeno, still smiling with his eyes as he chuckles at the screen.If only they knew.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 19
Kudos: 118





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for a long time i've wanted to write a fic, and one fateful day when i was in the shower and limitless was blasting,
> 
> to paraphrase mary shelley, swift as light and as cheering was the idea that broke in upon me. 
> 
> 'i have found it!' i thought to myself, as taeyong growled from the corner.
> 
> so here it is, that stab at something. my first piece of fiction - romantic fiction no less, that story.

**1.**

Jaemin nervously drums his fingers on the breakfast table. Unknowingly he’s shaking his knees beneath the table too, even though his mom has told him - _time and time again_ \- if he keeps it up, he’ll shake all his luck away. 

Yet he does it anyway. Since young, he has always had a habit of expending all this excess energy with random little tics, little dramaticisms others have now taken to be, quintessentially, Na Jaemin. But his mother sees right through him.

“Nervous, Jaemin?” she gives him a knowing look.

“A bit,” he nods through gritted teeth.

She smiles, laying out the plates of banchan. “It’s your first day of school, Jaemin. All thirteen-year-olds would feel the same way. You’ll be fine.” 

Jaemin doesn’t reply with his typical megawatt smile. Instead he nods, a little too convincingly, eyes still transfixed on the serpentine grooves etched into the wooden tabletop.

“Hey, Nana, look at me,” she puts down the tray, cradling his face with her soft palms. 

“I know it’s a big step for you, deciding to go to dance school - but always remember, no matter what happens, we’ll be here for you. You know that, right?”

He doesn’t stop shaking his feet. 

“But what if I turn out to be bad at dancing? What if I’m just not good enough?” he looks up at her, voice quivering, eyes wide like saucers.

“Nana, Nana, look at me. Remember when you told me you wanted to become a K-pop idol? After that day when the SM recruiter came up to us and gave you her name card?”

“Of course, I was handing out that poster, for that children’s association -” 

“And how you told me straight after - all you wanted was to dance and see yourself on stage? You said it with so much conviction. I’ve never seen you so passionate about anything before,” she says, swaddling Jaemin in a warm embrace. 

“I asked if you were willing to give up school for this. Train for hours everyday to become an idol. And you told me yes, immediately.” 

She strokes his eyebrow tenderly. “You know you have it in you to fulfill your dreams, Nana.”

“I really hope so, Omma,” he whispers softly, arms tightly wrapped around her.

Now Jaemin just feels stupid. Stupidly self-aware. Clad in this garishly yellow tweed blazer embellished with awkward pupil-black buttons, him and his auburn hair and pale frame must look _ravishing,_ waddling down the street in the oversized pair of leather shoes his mother made him wear. 

“First impressions count,” she said firmly, as she handed it to him. I mean, he knows he has to be formal on his first day of school, but maybe he just isn’t used to it, or maybe they’re too big for him - unsteadily he totters along, each heel scraping against the grit of the tarmac.

Jaemin wipes away the sweat on his brow, visibly panting in the musky September humidity. God, he probably looks like a clown - not even the fun, technicolor kind he loved taking pictures with at Lotte World. Instead probably something like a nervous scarecrow, a hastily put-together craft project -

His mom interrupts the eddying thoughts in his brain.

“Nana, we’re here.”

He stares up at the unassuming building, a cuboid hunk of glass and brick. So this is where he’ll dance his heart out, just like the _sunbaenims_ he saw on Inkigayo and all the other trainees before him. Where his career as a K-pop idol will finally begin.

He stops walking just before the imposing flight of stairs. He knows that once he steps forth, he can’t go back to his old life, his childhood.

Jaemin pauses slightly, biting his lip.

To his right, another mother-child duo also stands stationary, the boy similarly clad in that ridiculous blazer. He too hesitates before the stairway.

Jaemin’s mother breaks the silence first. “It’s your son’s first day at school too?”

When the boy turns around, his jaw drops. For a few moments he forgets his insecurities, just focuses on the boy before him.

That boy is - he can’t even find the word for it - _beyond_ stunning. 

He slings his bag against his angular frame almost casually, even though Jaemin senses that same uncertainty in the way he slightly hunches his shoulders. With his fair skin and perfect proportions, he somehow manages to pull off the entire getup, even makes it look _stylish._

More than that, he has the sharpest jawline he has ever seen, at least for someone around his age. The edge in his jaw only accentuates his sculpted, unreal features - that narrow, tall nose bridge, those carefully arched eyebrows, and those perfectly-shaped pink lips. 

But most of all, perhaps most captivating of them all, are his radiant, almond-shaped eyes. There’s something shocking about the way his long, delicate eyelashes frame those wondrous, jet-black irises. How they contain so much emotion, so much life.

As the boy stares back at him, Jaemin feels the murky depth of those eyes, how it eats into him.

The boy’s mother replies warmly. “Yeah! Jeno’s a little nervous today too.”

He weighs the name Jeno in his mouth. _Jeno._ It’s a nice name.

“Same! It’s Jaemin’s first time here too - he’s been so jumpy the entire morning,” his mother rubs his shoulder comfortingly.

The boy’s mother gives him a friendly smile. “Which course is your son enrolled in? Jeno’s in Practical Dance.” 

“Oh, Jaemin too! Go on, say hi to your classmate,” his mother urges, almost pushes him towards the boy.

Jaemin watches how Jeno’s eyes don’t stray from him, those inky-black eyes now mildly pensive. As he slowly processes his mother’s words, he hears his heartbeat inexplicably pounding in his eardrums, his cavernous breaths catching the stagnant air. As if time had slowed down in this moment, just for him, for them.

He inches forward, putting on his best smile. He tries not to look hesitant.

“Nice to meet you Jeno! I’m Jaemin,” he beams in that usual way of his, stretching out his hand. He doesn’t know why he does this - he usually isn’t this formal - yet somehow, it feels appropriate, correct almost.

Jeno’s gaze breaks as his pink lips protract into a slight grin. “Nice to meet you,” he shyly utters in a tiny voice, tentatively returning his handshake.

When their fingers finally connect, Jaemin feels something unlock in him. There’s something about his warmth, that puppy-like smile on the boy’s face that tells him that he just met a friend, maybe a best friend at that.

His friend with whom he'll sit each morning and walk home each evening. With whom he’ll trade food and stupid stories and all the secrets he keeps from his parents, even the ugly, inappropriate ones. With whom he’ll dance and cry, and fight and laugh, together.

Jaemin just hopes Jeno knows it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long time ago there lived a physiognomist known for his outstanding face-reading abilities. One day he sought lodging in the home of a poor man, whose face, as the physiognomist read it, was that of a wealthy man, unlike his current state. The physiognomist found this to be most unusual, and in the middle of the night, noticed that the poor man was tapping his feet in his sleep. The physiognomist finally realized the cause of the man’s poverty, and that night took a steel hammer and smashed the man’s leg before running off. Following this incident, the poor man’s fortune was reversed; with everything going smoothly he acquired great wealth. 
> 
> This story, categorized as a tale of fate (unmyeongdam), explains the origin of the superstition that the habit of leg shaking drives away one’s good fortune, and is often quoted to warn against the practice and highlight the inevitability of fate. (Encyclopedia of Korea Folk Culture)


	2. Chapter 2

**2.  
  
** A set of knuckles gently nudges Jaemin right in the square beneath his ribs.

“Lee Jeno,” he hisses before even turning around. “How many times have I told you not to do that?”

He grits his teeth and flips around, fists tightly clenched around the straps of his backpack. But before he can even unleash his rant about how Jeno won’t stop annoying him, Jaemin helplessly _melts_.

Jeno grins devilishly before him, eyes smiling like upturned moons. Wordlessly he stretches out an arm towards him, fingers clasping a banana milk with the straw already punctured in.

“Thanks, Jen,” Jaemin bites back his spiel as Jeno sips absent-mindedly from his own.

As both of them slowly trudge home from their usual meeting spot under the lamppost, Jaemin carefully drinks from his pint-sized carton, eyes occasionally darting to the older.

He was right. They became close friends, and deskmates, right away. Although they haven’t exactly established it, maybe they're even best friends, given how he and Jeno race each other to the snack shop downstairs the moment the recess bell sounds. (Jeno's always one step faster, but he always lets Jaemin win.) And how they spend the subsequent minutes of their precious break bantering about everything and nothing, jabbing and pointing.

Actually he does most of the talking. His classmates always point out the peculiarities in their being together - lanky, hyperactive Na Jaemin who won’t stop talking, and built, bashful Lee Jeno who never says a word. It’s always him with the noises, the little body waves and chicken dances Jeno never fails to laugh at, even if no one does. 

“Ya, why were you online so late yesterday night?” he shoots a questioning glare at Jeno as he finishes the last of his drink. “I thought you said you were going to sleep early.”

“But they released a new game item last night, so I had to try it out-”

Jaemin sighs. “Jeno-ya, how many times have I told you - you need to sleep earlier. How else are you going to have energy to dance?”

“Stop babying me,” Jeno huffs petulantly at him. “Look at me - I’m okay. So full of energy!”

“Right. So much that you’re asleep each time the teacher calls on you.”

“But the lessons are just _soooo_ boring. That’s not my fault!”

He sticks his tongue out at Jeno. “Sure Mr Lee, not your fault.”

They pace in silence, but not for long.

“Ya, did you see how Wonwoo tried to do the Gentleman dance during practice today?” Jeno grins at him. “That was so funny.”

“Did I see it? I mean, how could I miss it when he stood on stage in front of everyone and went-”

Recklessly Jaemin begins gyrating his hips in the middle of the tree-lined street, arms awkwardly akimbo. Pushing his spectacles down his sharp nose he mouths, _I’m a mother father gentleman!_

Jeno bursts into laughter, clapping his hands excitedly. “No, he looked more constipated-”

Jaemin quickly creases his forehead in response, contorting his lips into an exaggerated frown as he repeats expressionlessly, _I’m a mother father gentleman._

Jeno falls apart guffawing, involuntarily slapping his palms together, as usual. There's a sudden twang in his heart - he can't help but wonder how long more these good times can last. Eventually he and Jeno will get swept up into the adult world - with them in different companies, and with all the rehearsals and restrictions, has time run out for them to be like this?

“Was it really that funny?” he beams at Jeno.

“Yeah, your impression was spot-on,” Jeno heaves, wiping away a tear.

Jaemin decides it’s the right time to break the news. 

“My mom and I, we’ve decided. I’m going for an audition at SM tomorrow morning.”

Jeno’s smile fades into something inscrutable. “So soon?” 

“Yeah, tomorrow’s the last day already.”

He tries to look for a reaction, but Jeno keeps his eyes on the pavement. He soldiers on nonetheless.

“They asked me to audition awhile back, but I kept telling them I wasn’t ready - Omma says I should go this time, or it might be too late. She says it’s too good a chance to pass up.”

They fall back into uncomfortable silence, footsteps resounding against the pavement. 

Jeno finally speaks, his voice barely above a whisper. “Then what about school?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe they’ll let me do a few more years, provided I can manage rookie training. It really depends on what the company says.” Jaemin wrings his hands, scratching at the hems of his uniform.

“Does that mean you’ll spend less time at school?”

“Probably,” he exhales, uncomfortable with how upset Jeno seems to be. He knew Jeno would be disappointed, but now he seems downright distraught.

He tries to keep it light. “I mean, it’s not like I’ll definitely pass the audition. Even if I do, I’ll still come to school, and we can-”

Jeno cuts him off. He gazes darkly at Jaemin, fingers tightly gripped around his emptied banana milk carton.

“Will you regret it?” he asks, thickly.

Jaemin's heart skips a beat. Jeno has never been this serious, this pleading - at least not before him.

“I don’t know. Guess I’ll have to find out for myself, don’t I?”

They don’t say anything for the remainder of the journey home.

When they finally reach Jaemin’s house, Jeno gives him a tight-lipped smile. There’s something forced about the way Jeno waves at him today, even though he does it each time he sends him home.

Jaemin tries to wave normally. Something tugs at his chest when he sees Jeno’s smile melt into something more constipated the split second before he shuts the door, just as he moves on forward.

“Na Jaemin?”

He quickly nods his head as the receptionist hands over his namecard.

God, even the receptionists at SM are good-looking, he can’t help but think as he nervously pins it onto his shirt.

Heading into the holding room - or should he say hall - gives him a shock. He’s aware that today’s the last day, but for a closed audition round*, why were there still so many applicants? As he surveys the endless rows of boys and girls in different-colored hairs before him, he realises, violently, just how many people other than him SM specially invited to audition. Just how many people too share his dream, his selfish dream of being a K-pop star.

As he settles into the corner-most seat, Jaemin tentatively watches the others twirl and belt and spin and bend. Nervously he shakes his knees.

What if Jeno was right?

If he didn’t get past the first round, nothing would change. He’d just pretend as if nothing had happened - he’d go back to school and hustle hard, and hopefully, by the end of the four years, some company would be impressed enough to take him.

But say, on the off-chance he actually passed the audition, what would happen? Was he ready to give up school, his family, his daily walks with Jeno - all for a faraway dream he might never achieve?

Jaemin tries not to overthink. He tells himself that when the music comes on, all he has to do is dance. After all, he actually likes dancing, and he’s danced to Shinee’s Replay countless times - this should be easy, right?

But he can’t stop fretting over the bigger questions, the unanswerable questions that linger too heavy for his small, 13-year-old brain.

What if all this was a giant mistake? 

What if, at the end of it all, all he wanted was to run back to Jeno and tell him he missed school, Omma, and him?

Gosh, he hates how Jeno sees through him. Sees through the energetic, self-assured facade everyone’s charmed by - and homes right into the insecurities he desperately tries to conceal from the world with a valiant smile.

But Jaemin doesn’t have much time for self-doubt, because he hears his name being called from a faraway door.

Carefully he picks himself up and brushes his clothes down. He imagines himself dancing in the room, in front of the panel and the camera, and steps, carefully, forward. 

Jaemin exhales coolly as he emerges from the audition room. 

It took a lot longer than expected, mostly because the video camera failed and they had to get the technicians over to figure out what was happening.

But he thinks he did well. Better than well, actually, considering how he made use of the time the technicians spent doing their thing charming the interviewers and the crew over with his quick wit and smile. Judging from the smiles on their faces before he even launched into his routine - which went without a hitch - he’s pretty sure he has it in the bag.

He rummages around in his own bag for his phone as he glances at the clock on the wall.

3pm already? That was way longer than it was supposed to be. Omma and Jeno must’ve sent him thousands of texts, worried sick about him.

As he fishes his phone out of his overstuffed backpack, Jaemin unexpectedly catches a glimpse of a familiar silhouette seated at the corner of the room.

His heart skips a beat as he rubs his eyes in disbelief, blinking again to make sure.

He was sure. He would recognize that messy crop of brown hair anywhere, those hunched shoulders that squashed themselves too small.

“Lee Jeno?” a voice calls out from the far end of the spacious hall. 

Jaemin watches in shock as the figure straightens himself with a faint smile and heads in the opposite direction.

Why was Jeno here? Why didn't he say anything, if he had received an invite too?

Then it hits him like a truck, the sudden jolt of stomach acid stinging in its wake. 

_Will you regret it?_

No wonder he acted so weirdly yesterday. No matter how he wrapped his head around it, he simply couldn’t understand why Jeno would be so upset. Sure, he'd be sad that they'd see each other less, but they were both students in a specialized arts school where most were destined for K-pop. For them both, going for auditions was common, even natural. 

No, Jeno wasn’t pleading with him to stay. He meant it as a warning.

Once he asked him that question, he was ready to give up on their friendship just because he was competition getting in the way. 

Jaemin knew it would be brutal. After all, it was no secret that he and his classmates and all these strangers in this room were embroiled in a cruel battle to see who ends up on top. It’s just that he didn’t expect that it’d be Jeno, of all people, who made him understand that.

Suddenly he feels this urge to run after him, spin him around with all his strength and scream. He’ll yell and cry and fling his backpack or whatever object he can mindlessly grab in that instant at his smirking face, anything that feels like betrayal. 

But Jaemin doesn’t, because he isn’t that kind of person.

And unlike Jeno, neither is he a competitive person. 

If Jeno had told him he too received an invite from SM, he would’ve been exhilarated that his friend was applying to the same management company as him. Heck, he’d even pester Jeno to go together with him for auditions.

Instead Jeno intentionally kept it from him, even manipulated him to repeatedly doubt himself so he could increase his own chances. 

To think he even deliberately came to audition in the afternoon, to avoid him. 

It all makes sense now. It all makes too much sense.

As Jeno’s question relentlessly repeats itself in his vacant head, Jaemin recalls the innocent smile Jeno gave each time he blabbered about his SM invitation. _Idiot,_ he mumbles helplessly under his breath, his world ripping at the seams.

“Thank you for today! Hope it went well!” the receptionist beams brightly at him as he stumbles for the exit. 

Jaemin forces a weak smile back, fumbling for the door.

He breathes, hard, fingers gripping too tightly to the handrails for support as he makes his way down the stairs. 

He thinks about the triumphant little look he stupidly wore when he first took Jeno’s hand in his that day, thinking he’d just met his best friend.

How he pressed his body a bit too close to Jeno’s for comfort in the sweltering summer as they nervously marched up the stairs, in step.

The sunlight hits him first when he emerges into the afternoon.

It reminds him of all the afternoons they spent going home, back when the autumn leaves crunched underfoot as he paced circles under the lamppost waiting for Jeno. Jeno’s warmth when they occasionally linked arms to cross the street in the dead of winter to avoid slipping on black ice. Their tinkling laughter just yesterday as they blithely sauntered home, petals fluttering each time the wind howled.

Jaemin looks up at the impossibly blue sky, the sickly stench of spring wafting in like a dream.

It was too good to last, he bitterly laughs to himself, blinking away stupid tears as he staggers home alone, futilely forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Closed auditions:
> 
> K-pop companies have both open and closed auditions. Closed auditions are set up by scouts who have recruited a prospect off the street or from Youtube or through insider connections in the Korean entertainment industry. The majority of major agency trainees come through this process and not open auditions. There’s not so much information about closed auditions, but it generally seems the scout will work with you to produce a ~1 minute video to be circulated around the company showing your various strengths. At that point the company will make a decision. (Rhea Thomas, Quora)


	3. Chapter 3

**3.**

When the call comes, spring is already gone.

Jaemin doesn’t feel like he thought he would when his mother screams from the kitchen, then bursts into the room to envelop him in a bone-crushing bear hug, sobbing. When she tells him SM called to say he had made it, Jaemin doesn’t even smile that much, doesn’t even feel that buoyant.

In fact, ever since Jeno betrayed him, Jaemin hasn’t been truly happy.

Sure, he cried himself to sleep for a couple of days after that, then spent the couple after hating himself for crying, but once he was done with all that he was strangely numb. Even now, as his mother fusses over him and busies herself with fretting over which clothes and which food Jaemin has to lug over to his new life, he looks vacantly over at the tiny suitcase his mother dragged out from some crevice, splayed open on the floor.

The moment he got home that day, he deleted Jeno’s contact off his phone. 

Jeno called once or twice (he’d always remember his number), even texted him a few times, but Jaemin got rid of those messages before he could even read them. He wasn’t going to fall for his emotional manipulation, not again.

Jaemin even swapped desks with Haechan, one of his better friends who incidentally also auditioned at SM, so he didn’t have to sit with Jeno anymore. When Haechan asked him, scratching his head in puzzlement, why he wanted to swap desks all of a sudden, Jaemin simply muttered, “He’s annoying.”

But he knows that’s not the reason why.

He knows that if each morning, he allows Jeno to stare at him with those puppy eyes, and feed him one more of his honeyed lies, he’d fall before he can even catch himself.

That’s why he now consciously keeps a distance from Jeno, even takes a huge detour to get home just so as to avoid that goddamn lamppost, or Jeno who might be sauntering home.

Jaemin stares at the spreadeagled luggage on the floor, black and empty.

He just hopes Jeno didn’t get the call too.

His worst fear comes to life, spindly and suave.

He’s holding his mother’s hand, walking into the gargantuan SM lobby to sign his contract, when he sees his ex-deskmate, smilingly stunning as usual, skipping across the lobby holding his mother’s arm too. There’s a triumphant look on his face, and Jaemin knows, he just signed the contract too. 

When they cross paths across the lobby, Jaemin tries to look impassive, in spite of his heart thumping like a lone bell.

“Oh, hello Jeno, you’re here to sign your contract too?” his mom blurts out, stopping abruptly before Jeno and his mother.

“Why didn’t you tell me anything - we could’ve gone together!” she nudges Jaemin questioningly, with a perplexed look in her eyes.

“Yeah, we’ve already signed it. Jaemin got in SM too? How come didn’t you mention it at all?” Jeno’s mother turns around crossly towards her son.

“In fact, I don’t really see Jeno around very much anymore - nowadays Jaemin usually comes home alone. Did something happen?” Jaemin’s mom continues on, oblivious to him biting his lip in annoyance.

He can’t just yell in front of everyone that they’ve cut off all contact, were no longer friends, and before this moment he actually didn’t know Jeno got in too, can he? Even if somewhere deep down, he was pretty sure the interviewers would similarly capitulate to Jeno’s charms, as he did.

To his front, Jeno seems as shocked at the sudden encounter as he is, mouth hanging slightly agape.

He watches Jeno’s eyes stutter as he fumbles for the words, the correct words to ease the tension.

But before those futile devices manage to pool into place, Jaemin tugs at his mother’s sleeve.

“We’re late, Mom,” he says, sternly.

Despite his mother’s protestations, then hasty goodbyes to Jeno and his mother as he forcibly drags her in the direction of the counter, Jaemin tries not to blink, not to turn his head back in a moment of weakness.

He doesn’t see Jeno standing limply staring back at him, the merriment on his face vanishing into space.

It’s that time of the year again.

Jaemin squirms listlessly, shaking his knees and uncomfortably changing the way he positions his arms as some senior warbles an Ailee song on stage. 

“Dude, stop fidgeting.” Mark groans, shaking his head in displeasure. 

“Can’t you just keep to yourself? You’ve been moving around and passing snide comments ever since the graduation concert started,” Haechan scowls from the other side of Mark. “It’s causing Mark to lean too much in my personal space.”

“I’m not,” Mark grunts sulkily, sliding back towards Jaemin as he returns Haechan a wide berth.

Jaemin frowns unhappily, reluctantly forcing himself to keep still. _It’s not my fault that they perform the same things each year,_ he mutters to himself.

Honestly speaking, he does appreciate Haechan and Mark a lot. Ever since he stopped talking to Jeno three months ago, they readily took him in like one of their own. And truly, they were fun to be around, with Haechan’s mischief and Mark his unwitting victim. He was really grateful that they were set to join him too at SM once the holidays began, and he wouldn’t be alone that way - it’s just that they didn’t quite have the patience, or the same tolerance for his shenanigans.

In fact, no one really puts up with him anymore.

Ignoring the dull pain in his stomach, Jaemin abruptly gets up just as the pint-sized senior on stage begins heartrendingly belting the bridge.

“Where - the hell - are _you_ going?” Mark hisses at him, brushing away Haechan’s elbow on his lap.

“I’m going to the toilet,” he shrugs back at Mark, treading through the sea of knees and annoyed glances for the door.

He takes a huge sigh once he’s out in the open, far from the overpeopled hall.

What he really needs is to be alone. Jaemin lets his footsteps take him as he aimlessly wanders the vacant corridors, hands in his pockets.

Just as he turns round the corner in a nondescript part of the fourth floor, he hears somebody crying, the hard and heavy kind.

Jaemin has half a mind to just move on and let them have their solitude (as he already intimately knows, sometimes you just need some alone time) - but somehow, he’s fairly certain there’s something he’s heard before in those cries. Besides, why would anyone be crying on graduation day? Maybe they just needed someone who was willing to listen.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he hides behind the corner and slowly peeks his head out, nosefirst.

It’s Jeno.

Jaemin feels something sink within him, when he sees the cheerful boy he once knew slunk in the dark corner all alone, hugging his knees as he bawls his eyes out. He thought he hated him, even knows he’s supposed to hate him after all that he’s done, but his heart can’t help but break watching Jeno cry for the first time, viciously so.

 _I’m such a wimp,_ Jaemin grits his teeth angrily, because his body reacts in the only way it knows. Soon enough he’s noiselessly gravitating towards the traitor, rummaging through his pockets.

When he’s finally about an arm’s distance from Jeno, he stretches out his right hand.

“For you,” he stonily utters, holding out a piece of tissue.

Startled like a deer caught in headlights, Jeno almost jumps as he flicks his head upwards at the intruder, eyes red.

The shock in his eyes turns to utter terror when he realises it’s Jaemin.

Hastily Jeno gets up, briskly brushing aside tears as he flees head-down for the light. He barely takes a few steps before Jaemin calls out after him, brusquely. 

“You’re a jerk, but even then you shouldn’t be crying alone.”

His words seem to twist something within Jeno, because he abruptly changes his mind and sits back down against the parapet, head still stubbornly hung.

“Take it,” Jaemin thrusts the last piece of tissue he found in his pocket at Jeno, cheek curtly turned away from the older.

However, instead of the tissue paper untethering from his grasp, fingers clasp around his wrist, cold and clammy.

He jerks back in horror, turning around to realise Jeno’s finally looking up at him as he grips onto him tightly, completely ignoring the tissue.

“What _are_ you doing? Get off me!” Forcefully Jaemin shakes him off, eyebrows bared.

Jeno doesn’t look away. Instead he mumbles, eyes wide, tears still streaming down his cheeks.

“Jaemin, tell me, did I do something wrong?”

“You’re asking me this?” Jaemin laughs, high-pitched and slightly deranged. “Wah, I can’t believe this - I always knew you were manipulative, but now you’re pretending that you don’t know what you did wrong? That you’re not even _in_ the wrong?”

Seething with rage, Jaemin turns to leave, but before he does, he stares Jeno down. 

“Do you know what I regret most? I should never have stretched out my hand for you, that first day we met.”

As he indignantly storms off into the corridor, head buzzing like a lightbulb, he hears a voice plead after him into the corridor.

“Nana, I beg you, please don’t go.”

Something gives within him in that moment, causes him to pause in his tracks. Maybe it’s the words, or maybe the desperation, but no one has called him Nana like that, not in a long time.

“I’m - I know I’m not a good friend, but I’ve been thinking - every - night - and I just don’t know where - why - you don’t want - to talk - talk to me - anymore.”

Confused, Jaemin spins around as Jeno helplessly runs his fingers through his hair.

“I know - I know I’m not a good friend - I know - I’m boring and I'm not funny - I can’t tell jokes like Haechan - and I’m - I’m - nowhere as talented as Mark - and compared to you - I don’t even - dance - that - well -” his voice breaks into sobs - “but - I can - try, I will try, Nana. Just please don’t leave me - leave me like that.”

Jaemin’s heart shatters as the words echo relentlessly across the corridor. He swallows nervously, retracing his steps back towards the crying boy.

“But - then - why didn’t you tell me beforehand that you were going to audition at SM? When I told you that day? I saw you there - with my own eyes - they even called your name -” he blurts out at the crying boy.

“That? You saw me?” Jeno furrows his brow. “But - but that’s because I wanted to tell you, after - after the audition - it to be a - a surprise. That we - were- applying to the same ma-management company.”

Jaemin feels the words pierce into him, twisting into his gut. 

“And I could - couldn’t have told you be- because I only got the - invite - from SM - after I sent you home - that night before - “ Jeno stutters between tears, his irises black and pleading. “I wanted to tell - you straight away - I thought I missed - couldn’t be with - you - when I finally got - got it - I was so happy but - but I wanted to - see your - reaction. Then you wouldn’t - wouldn’t look at me anymore.”

Jaemin feels the truth sink its claws into his chest, that dull pain in his being now biting and alive. How could Jeno be lying if he’s this distraught, if he’s crumpled against the wall like this?

What came over him? Why was his first instinct to suspect Jeno, despite all that he had done for him? When Jeno was the sweetest boy he’d ever met, and smiled at him with all his heart? When he had known, all along, that Jeno couldn’t lie for shit?

No, Jeno wasn’t the bad friend. He was, for choosing himself.

Guiltily Jaemin leans in to hug the guileless boy, tilting the older’s head upon his shoulder.

Jeno begins crying even harder, the tears now gushing everywhere - onto his collar, his sleeve, all over Jaemin’s shirt.

“I’m so, so sorry Jeno, I thought you intentionally kept the news from me,” he whispers softly, tears welling in his eyes. “I thought you didn’t want to be my friend anymore too - I was so stupid I - I’m sorry, Jeno, I really am.”

Jeno shakes his head vehemently and tries to say something, but he’s crying beyond composure and only formless sounds come out. His hands are shaking and so are his shoulders, and so is Jaemin’s heart, guilty and ashamed.

“I’m sorry Jeno, I’m sorry, so sorry -” Jaemin repeats futilely, blankly holding the boy up into place, afraid that he’d collapse to the floor.

The tears continue unrelentingly cascading out of Jeno’s pithy frame, and Jaemin can’t help but feel shocked at how one person can cry so much. Then hardness, at how all this melancholy was his handiwork.

He’s spent the entire time hating the wrong person, Jaemin realizes. He should’ve spent all those sleepless nights hating himself instead.

Jeno momentarily gazes up at him again between tears, wiping them away with the back of his palm.

“Nana, p-promise me you won’t leave me alone.”

Jaemin breathes back tenderly as he caresses the older’s hair.

“I won’t ever leave you again, Jeno, I promise.”

As Jeno chokes back the last of his sobs, finally smiling ruefully, Jaemin takes him into his embrace again, securely holding onto the closest friend he’s ever known.

Jeno was the one who had always been there for him, following him around, wordlessly defending him whenever he felt threatened. But now, after all he had done, it was his turn to salve Jeno’s heart, to protect his best friend.

“I’ve missed you, Jeno-ya,” Jaemin finally speaks, after what feels like a lifetime.

He feels Jeno smiling into his shoulder. “Me too,” he whispers.

When they finally leave the corridor, fingers interlocked as they return to the hall, Jaemin doesn’t care that there’s an egregiously large wet patch on his left chest, right above his heart.

All he knows is that it’s warm, and it finally feels like summer again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jeno exhales in frustration, rubbing his sore calves with the edges of his knuckles.
> 
> He’s been walking for hours in Hongdae now, but still no one has approached him, even cast a single glance at him. 
> 
> Dejectedly he crouches along the sidewalk, pulling down his sock to observe his left heel, which has been hurting since he left school. As expected it’s chafed raw and bloody, the back of his sock red with desperation.
> 
> Why did Omma have to reject that SM recruiter? If she’d just said yes, he would’ve got the invite and tomorrow he’d be on his way to the SM building, with Jaemin by his side. Instead she couldn’t find his contact - she couldn’t even remember that guy’s name - and now he was all alone, sweatily running in circles trying to look pretty, just because Naver said a lot of idols got streetcasted here in Hongdae. 
> 
> Jeno stares helplessly at the crowds swarming before him, and then at the setting sun, some unknown pop song booming from faraway like nightfall. He’s running out of time.
> 
> There’s only one way left. 
> 
> One that he dreads, because he’s always been afraid of crowds, uneasy with being the centre of attention.
> 
> But had he waited for Omma to remember, or for the open auditions to begin - whenever they might be - Jaemin would’ve found new friends, better friends, moved on without him.
> 
> And he knows once Jaemin makes up his mind, he never thinks twice. He said it himself, today.
> 
> To keep his best friend selfishly to himself, there was no other way.
> 
> Ignoring his heart pummelling in his chest, Jeno takes a deep breath. He walks to the rare spot of open space right smack in the middle of the evening crowd, and exhales.
> 
> Smilingly he puts his foot firmly onto the concrete. And then he dances, dances his heart and his legs out, dances like he has never done before.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.**

“You. Number 42. What the hell were you doing?”

Jaemin freezes at the mention of his number. He slowly tilts his body to face the burly man with the booming voice, heart palpitating in fear. He’s always been afraid of this teacher, how he scowls with his hooked eyes and his mountainous shoulders. 

The man scratches angrily at the collar of his turtleneck, squinting at him through a tiny pair of rounded glasses.

“Na Jae - Hyun, right?”

“No, sir, it’s Jaemin - “ he mumbles, turning down to look at his namecard.

“Why are you whispering? Speak louder!” The man bellows from where he’s seated. 

“It’s - it’s Na Jaemin, sir.” 

“You. Na Jaemin. Have you ever wondered why you haven’t been formally introduced in SM Rookies yet?”

Jaemin hangs his head, biting his lip.

“I’m asking _you_ a question! **Answer it!** ” 

“I don’t know, sir.” He shakes his head, averting the teacher’s gaze. 

“Well, if you were seated here like me, you’d understand why.”

Jaemin holds his breath as the words eat into him.

“It’s been 2 years since you’ve joined us -”

 _A year and half actually,_ Jaemin thinks to himself.

“- and still you can’t dance. Everything about you is off - your flow, your expressions, even your timing! And it has been for months. Do you know - if I grabbed one of the newbies from the second floor, they’d probably dance better than you ever wi- **I said, look at me when I’m speaking!** ” He bangs his fist on the clothed tabletop.

Jaemin flicks his chin up on command. “Sorry- sorry sir..” he stammers.

“Don’t apologise to me. That won’t help me, that won’t help the company, that won’t help _you_! Go ask yourself, why the hell do we still let you be here? When you can’t even dance - let’s not talk about your rapping or singing. You might have some looks, but if you can’t perform there’s no place for you on stage - you know that? Don’t even think about debuting - think about whether you’ll still be here next month!” 

His thunderous voice echoes around the studio, the other trainees too standing silent, keeping mum. Jaemin feels the tears welling in his eyes, and instinctively he bites his tongue.

“I’ll - I’ll do better, sir.” he answers, eyes fixated on the floor again.

“Of course you will. If you don’t you can start packing your belongings and telling all your friends goodbye.”

Jaemin bites his lip, resisting the urge to wipe away the disobedient tears that brim in his sockets. But just as the tirade begins without warning, the teacher moves on the next victim.

He keeps his head down, mentally warning his legs to stop trembling as the teachers’ words eat and eat and eat. But still they quiver, his knees and his lips. 

  
  


“Are you alright?” Renjun runs over the moment the teacher dismisses the class for the night. “That was so unnecessary!”

“Yeah, that was really too much of him. He was ridiculously harsh today -” Mark broods indignantly on his other side, hands gripping his water bottle. 

“Yeah - I bet he quarrelled with his wife or something! Or he’s not getting enough sex!” Haechan vents from beside Mark, flailing his arms about.

“Guys - guys, I’m okay.” Jaemin exhales, putting on a tight smile. “He might’ve been a bit harsh today but he does have a point -”

“Stop being so understanding! He was obviously being such a bitch!” Haechan raises his voice slightly, anxiously looking around to make sure the instructors had properly left. 

“Yeah, he really was a bitch today. Don’t take it to heart, okay, Jaemin?” Renjun frowns at him.

“Haters gonna hate - just keep on doing your thing, okay?” Mark taps him firmly on the shoulder.

“Of course I will.” Jaemin breathes. “Have you guys forgotten who I am? I’m Na Jaemin, Na - Jae - Min -” he puts two fingers to his lips and blows a aegyo-laden kiss. “Nothing stops me, remember?”

This seems to placate the others, who alternate between cringing and laughing heartily. Quickly they change the conversation topic to Haechan’s new haircut, and how much he looks like a palm tree.

As Jaemin pulls on his winter coat and silently follows behind the trio who, by now, are unsurprisingly making a racket, he feels a familiar set of warm fingers on his arm.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jeno stares up at him, forehead creased with worry.

“Yeah I am.” Jaemin smiles at his orb-like eyes.

“Really?”

“Of course - That was such a small thing - especially for me, Na Jaemin.” Vigorously he thumps his chest, stretching his lips to reveal a toothy smile.

Jeno blinks back, still unconvinced. “If you’re not okay, you can tell me, Jaem. He was really mean today.”

“Jeno, I’ve already told you, I’m alright. What else do you want me to do to prove I’m okay?” Jaemin doesn’t let down his smile, forces everything else out of his head.

Jeno purses his lips, furrowing his eyebrows. “If you say so, Jaemin. But you know I’m always here for you, right?”

“I know, I know,” Jaemin takes Jeno’s hand in his, still smiling. “You’re really _really_ long-winded, you know that?”

Jeno finally lets out a grin. “Says you.”

Jaemin playfully sticks his tongue out at Jeno, who crinkles his nose back. As they head out of the building into the night, Jaemin slowly lets himself unclench, the smile slipping from his face into the darkness. Turning his head away from the rest obliviously chattering away and texting on their phones, he relents, and the thoughts flood in like ice.

They keep him up tonight, preventing him from the release of sleep. Even with his knees to his chest, the draft bites into him each time the window rattles. Damn, he was really dumb enough to expect a 3000-won acrylic blanket and those paper-thin dormitory walls to tide him through winter.

But usually even with the black, bitter cold, he has no problem passing out from exhaustion. Just like Jisung, who’s sound asleep on the other side of the room.

It must’ve been the five shots of espresso in his Americano today - usually he went with four, but recently it didn’t hit as hard as it should have. So he one-upped himself, just like how he went from three to four a couple of months ago, and two to three a couple months before that, and - and.

Or maybe it’s the hunger, considering all he’s had today is an apple. But he’s sure he’s used to it by now, hardened beyond those initial days when his brain screamed and his chest flailed with acid when he first began dieting. In fact, it feels weird nowadays if he isn’t hungry. 

He’s pathetic, he knows. But he’s sixteen and grown now - no longer is he a child, sheltered from the real world.

The wind screams outside too, the window grilles tussling with the nails holding them down. Suddenly Jaemin feels the urge to eschew these walls and run out into the open where he won’t be trapped with self-pity. He’ll still be cold, inside or outside, anyway. 

Carefully he peels off his blanket and stretches for his parka, peeking over regularly to make sure he doesn’t wake Jisung up. Thankfully he doesn’t rouse, knocked out as if he might have been dead.

 _Poor boy_ , Jaemin thinks to himself as he gently pulls open the room door. He’s putting himself through so much - both school and training - at the mere age of fourteen, just like when he first joined SM. At least he dropped out of school last year.

He doubts himself a little when he shuts the main door - he really shouldn’t be doing this, with dance practice first thing tomorrow morning. But he knows he has to get out today, has to do something different to stop the ball of sadness hardening in his chest.

As expected, the wind blasts him right in his chest when he emerges from the building. Shivering a little, Jaemin hastily pulls the zip on his parka right up to his neck and flips up his hood. Tugging his fingers deep into his pockets and his chin underneath his parka he steps out, footsteps crunching into the slushed streets. 

There’s nothing nearby where he’s housed at, no nice river to aimlessly promenade along or rooftop with an epic view of Seoul just like in the dramas. Instead there are ugly roads with boring cars, ugly boring buildings that look like they could be anywhere else, and one ugly boring park - if you could even call it a park - honestly more like a space-filler - with a few errant, barren trees. Still he heads to the park, because there isn’t anywhere else to go.

Walking in the night, he feels ugly too. Even the moon slights him today - she’s nowhere to be found, slunk behind clouds and fine dust.

What if he never finds the moon? What if he never leaves his trainee bed with the rickety bedframe, never escapes this humdrum neighborhood where days and nights bleed the same? 

At this moment he feels his left sneaker catch onto something jutting out from the sludge on the pavement, and suddenly he’s falling, falling too fast -

And he’s sideways on the ground, all alone. 

Jaemin laughs bitterly, tasting the blood in his mouth. Why’s he so shit at everything? What if this is his destiny, this everlasting winter with his knees to his chest?

But there’s a flurry of footsteps rushing over, a sudden set of warm hands around him propping him up, a worried pair of eyes observing his own -

“Are you alright?” Jeno nearly spits out, his eyes and hands searching him over. 

“Je-Jeno- why are you here?” Jaemin sputters, confused.

“You - always close the main door so loudly,” Jeno exhales, still scrutinizing Jaemin’s arms. 

Jaemin watches how Jeno scrunches up his face in concentration as he presses through the denim on his knee. “Does your knee hurt?” He asks, eyes focussed on his thumbs. Jaemin shakes his head.

“How about here?” he presses an adjacent spot. Jaemin shakes his head again. “And how about your -” 

Abruptly Jaemin lurches forward and engulfs the kneeling boy in a bone-crushing hug, the tears streaming out. “It hurts, Jeno, it hurts - everywhere.”

He feels Jeno swaying to steady himself, trying to understand - and in an instant he softens, looping his arms around the broad of his back. 

“Dummy, I said you could tell me if you weren’t okay.” Jeno whispers into his nape. 

“I am - now, aren’t I?” Jaemin sniffles through his tears, his chin digging into Jeno’s shoulder.

“You’re always so stubborn. Always pretending to be strong, to be okay, even though you’re obviously not.”

“Are you even trying to comfort me? I’m literally - crying - here - and all you do is insult me -“

Jeno doesn’t retaliate this time, instead gently stroking Jaemin’s hair before replacing the hood over his ears. 

The two stay like that for a long time, Jaemin emptying out his chest and tear ducts into the night until he’s finally spent.

“Can we move to the bench?” Jeno whispers into his ear quietly. “My legs are numb.”

“Oh- sorry -” Jaemin sheepishly slides back, realizing only now how he’s forced Jeno into an inconvenient half-squatting, half-sitting position in order to support his weight.

Jeno rises to his feet unsteadily, pounding his fists against his thighs.

“You could’ve told me earlier,” Jaemin wipes away the last of his tears as he scrambles to stand up himself.

But before he does, Jeno’s ungloved hand is already outstretched towards him, inches from his face as usual. Gratefully he grabs hold, Jeno’s fingers warm and sturdy despite the cold.

“Do you feel better now?” Jeno’s voice is hushed tender, barely above the howling wind.

“A bit.” Jaemin nods.

Jeno gently tugs him to the nearest park bench, brushing aside twigs and melted snow with the hem of his parka. When they’re finally seated snugly on the metal frame that’s just right for their two pubescent bodies, he turns to Jeno, his hand still intertwined in his.

“Jeno-ya, should I just give up on being an idol? I don’t think I’m fit to be one.”

“What nonsense are you talking about?” Jeno looks up at him in alarm. “You were literally made to be an idol - and you love being one.”

“But I’m not good at it. I don’t really have the talent, and recently my dancing hasn’t been up to mark. If I leave now, maybe I won’t have to catch up on that much lost time.”

“Nana, listen to me -” Jeno turns over Jaemin’s palm on his knee. “Everyone goes through doubts from time to time, but trust me - you have it what it takes to become an idol. I’ve literally been beside you every day for two, three years now - you move like - nobody else on stage, and you’re charming and extroverted and funny, and you’re, you’re -” his voice drops a little as he looks away, “ _h-handsome_.”

Jaemin feels his heart throb in his chest, perhaps a bit too much. “I’m handsome?” 

“Don’t make me say it again, Nana,” Jeno snaps back. “You are. You have been since young.” 

Jaemin stares at Jeno’s pale face in the dark, illuminated orange from the street lamps. There’s a certain wistfulness in his features, which he realises time has only hardened and sharpened from that first day they met. He’s no longer a boy too, like him - but an adult-to-be, wizened from all that they’re going through.

“Look at that tree -” Jeno tugs on his arm again. “That barren, lifeless-looking tree. That’s us now. Going through shitty things, sleeping in dormitories with faulty heaters and pathetic walls, running after the last train after ten hours of training -”

“That’s a shitty analogy.” Jaemin deadpans. “Trees don’t even move.”

“But you get what I’m trying to say. These trees shed all their leaves and go through all these shitty things like the wind and the cold - but it’s only because they endure the winter they come alive again in spring, and bloom, with pink flowers.”

“But what if my flowers don’t even bloom?” Jaemin looks at him sadly. “What if I just wasn’t meant to bloom, at all?”

“Then there’s next spring. And the spring after that,” Jeno fires back, insistent. “You have it in you to be on that stage - no, you deserve a place on that stage - with your talent and your everything. You’re on your way there, and you may not see it - but we do. _I do.”_ he fiercely adds.

There’s a glint in his eyes that wasn’t there before, a fiery glint several hues sharper than the light from the streetlamp reflected within his glassy irises. Jaemin’s throat is dry, and he’s taken aback by how forceful Jeno suddenly is, how overcome with emotion his voice is.

“I - I’ll try, Jen -”

“You must, Nana, because we’re all rooting for you. I’m rooting for you. No matter what happens, I’m always here for you, you know that?”

Jeno’s gaze is unflinching but soft.

It’s all too much - this unbridled, unconditional warmth - and Jaemin’s crumbling again, tearing, and Jeno’s hugging him with all of his arms and all of his warmth, his breath warm against his neck.

“Thank - you - Jen,” he exhales through his tears. “I - just - want to debut - and I really - really want to make Omma - and all you guys - proud of me. I want to make people happy - when I perform. “

“I can’t say about the others, but I’m already proud of you, Nana.” Jeno murmurs. “You’re an amazing dancer. And you’re an amazing friend too - always cooking for us and taking care of us. Always putting others before yourself. You know how much you mean to us, right?” 

Jaemin finally lets out a slight smile. “I never knew Lee Jeno was capable of being cheesy.”

He sees the redness intensify across Jeno’s already-rosy face as Jeno quickly averts his gaze. “Hey, I really mean it…” he shifts in his corner. “You guys are the only friends I have, since we all quit school so early -”

“I know, I know. We also literally spend 24 hours, 7 days a week with one another.”

“That too.”

They don’t quite part even after Jaemin’s breathing slows, the two of them exchanging warmth chest to chest in the wintry darkness.

“Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if we didn’t drop out of school.” Jaemin pulls back, a little reluctantly. “How would it be like to have a normal life, like rushing homework before classes and eating dinner at home and going for parties?”

“I dunno. Maybe it would have been fun - but I think I like this one better.” Jeno gives him a slight smile. “Fighting for my dream alongside my friends. Dancing away sleepless nights and huddling together in the cold. When we end up on stage, together, the hunger, the tears - it’ll all be worth it.” 

“You really think so?”

“I’m sure.” Jeno squeezes his hand firmly. “And you will be there too. The both of us will be standing on that stage, smiling.”

Faintly Jaemin hears the cheers from the audience, feels the confetti raining down, the blinding spotlights overhead flooding everything impossibly bright. And so are Jeno’s eyes, Jeno’s toothy smile when he turns over to look at him.

Jaemin squeezes Jeno’s hand back. “I like that. Let’s do it.”

When he faces up at Jeno, he’s finally smiling, with all his eyes and his chest. So is Jeno, floridly, face flushed from the cold even in the shade.

“Shall we make a run for the convenience store? Let’s go get something sweet.” Jeno rises abruptly, tugging at his arm. “You always eat ice-cream to pick yourself up, right?”

 _How do you even know that? And you don’t even like sweet things,_ Jaemin’s brain fires away at the unexpected proposition. Then he understands, realizes how much Jeno’s been watching him this entire time, just how much Jeno understands him too, inside and out.

“But it’s so far away! Plus we’re still on a diet, Jen. They’ll kill us if they find out.” Jaemin opts for a more logical response, his heart palpitating restlessly.

“The thing is, they won’t.” Jeno grins mischievously. “Besides you always tell me to get a life. To live a little. Don’t stop me this time.”

His eyebrows are arched and his eyes gleaming, more than they have ever been. He’s studying the cheap plastic watch on his wrist, all fired up, his feet pacing into a slight walk. “The store closes at 2. If we hurry, we should be able to reach it - just in time.” Turning back to beckon towards the startled Jaemin, he asks, with gravity. “You coming?”

Jeno usually isn’t the one up to no good - he is. “Y-yes.” he stammers back.

“You can run, right? Even after the fall?”

“I can -”

But before he can even finish his sentence, Jeno screams “Hold tight!” and he’s grabbing his hand again, and the both of them are running, flying, flitting a little too haphazardly across the icy streets. Jeno’s swerving at the bends, gripping tight on his knuckles each time they pass a nasty stretch, shouting out “Be careful!” with a careless throw of his neck.

Jaemin feels the wind whoosh through his hair, the blood coursing through his veins, and suddenly he’s alive again, more alive than he has been in a long time. 

“You good?” Jeno yells back above the faint snow at a particularly straight stretch of road. 

“Never better!” Jaemin hollers back a bit too loudly, his voice bright with exhilaration. He lets out a high-pitched cry of joy, not dissimilar to the kind people hurl at the top of a roller-coaster.

He catches a glimpse of Jeno’s wide grin as Jeno's coat flutters in the wind. Jaemin clings onto him, his impossibly warm hand for dear life.

 _Maybe trees do move after all,_ he smiles to himself. _And they don’t just move, they fly._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With small hands and feet we held each other and ran  
> That was all for us in our young days  
> Our earnest and happy dreams  
> Those dreams that overflowed  
> In your hands  
> I hope they’re still tightly held in your hands.
> 
> Will Last Forever, AKMU
> 
> -
> 
>   
> happy new year folks. i've been trying to write as much as i can, alas there's always work and the holidays and a myriad other things. hope you too will be able to hold onto your dreams, and run, unencumbered, this new year.


	5. Chapter 5

**5.**

When Jaemin enters his room, he finds the invader comfortably tucked into his bed as usual. He looks right at home with his ruffled brown hair and sleep eyes, curled sideways under the sheets like a worm. The petulant boy even scratches absent-mindedly at his sweatpant-clad legs draped all over _his_ beloved Ryan plushie cushion, giggling at his phone propped up against _his_ pillow. 

It’s attack time.

Silently Jaemin rolls up his sleeves and pounces.

“Hey! Why are you in my bed again!” he rains fistfuls on the older boy’s rear, making sure they achieve impact even through his now-thick blanket and the considerable grey fabric. 

“Ow, it hurts!” Jeno grimaces exaggeratedly. “What if I can’t dance tomorrow? Are you preventing me from debuting?”

“I’ve seen you lift Renjun like it’s nothing. Lee Jeno, are you trying to guilt-trip me?” Jaemin huffs indignantly as he slips under the covers. “First you colonize my bed, then you - you deserve some tickling.”

“No- NO-” but Jeno’s protestations come a little too futile, too late. Jaemin’s firing jabs at his stomach, his weak points (he knows all of them) and Jeno’s curled up even more, squealing at him to stop. 

Jeno’s thrashing around, but he’s smiling nonetheless, and so is Jaemin. It’s been four years now, yet every time Jaemin tickles him Jeno lets him - despite the fact that Jeno now has more than enough strength to shut him down, as Chenle and Haechan are too well acquainted with.

The two boys lie laughing and heaving, feet intertwined as they take a breather from their scuffle. “Truce?” Jeno pouts, holding out a thumb.

“Fine.” Jaemin rolls his eyes, as he boops his thumb back.

Jeno grins a little too smugly, but he doesn’t have the heart to smack it out of him.

“I can’t believe it’s actually tomorrow,” Jaemin snuggles into the other boy’s chest. “Can you believe it, all those trainee days we spent dreaming about - being on stage, people screaming for us - it’ll finally be our turn tomorrow? And with hoverboards?”

“Oh yes, the hoverboards,” Jeno inches sideways towards Jaemin. “I told you, we’d make it.”

“I honestly thought we’d have to wait years to debut -”

“We’re not called NCT _Dream_ for nothing, you know.”

Jaemin grins up at Jeno, who’s beaming down at him, soft and radiant. In that instant, their eyes connect, and Jaemin suddenly realizes how close Jeno’s lips are to his, how red Jeno’s face is flushed, how warm and wanting Jeno’s breath is on his forehead. Somehow his heart is racing, his breath is shallow too, and all he sees are Jeno’s lips, slightly chafed but pink and utterly tender. 

_But, but .._ his brain struggles for words but they evade capture. Instead his head bubbles, and his entire being smolders with presence and the heat of Jeno’s body. And for some reason Jeno’s leaning in close, eyes pressed together -

“There you are -- you guys! I’ve been searching the entire place for you!”

Jaemin instinctively kicks Jeno hard in the thigh and scrambles into a sitting position to face Haechan, who’s burst into the room, a thundering whirlwind. “Chenle and Renjun’s attempting to prepare breakfast, and if you don’t step in they’re absolutely going to burn down the kitchen - “

Haechan pauses, smelling the tension in the room as Jeno clutches his knee, whimpering, and Jaemin beams at him a little too sweetly, back straight. “Did I interrupt something?” 

“No, no, you didn’t. I’ll come with you,” Jaemin swiftly lifts himself off the bed. “We can’t afford those two rascals destroying the house!” 

Avoiding the way Jeno looks at him with pleading eyes, he strides for the door, heart still thumping heavily when he brushes past Haechan. There’s a slight tug on his chest, a pinkish glow that blossoms across his cheeks which he can’t ignore, can’t seem to place because he, Na Jaemin, _never_ gets embarrassed.

Jeno and him don’t talk about it, partly because they spend the remaining time trying to put out the mini kitchen fire (Haechan wasn’t exaggerating) and the rest fretting over their debut performance, with all the flourishes and pizzazz they haven’t yet got used to. Expectations are high ever since their hit music video _(“5 million views?!” Renjun screeched out loud, one day while scrolling his phone at dinner)_ , and well, the fact that they’re _a_ SM group. 

The preparations have been intense, and every waking moment is spent rehearsing, fitting, styling, rehearsing, wolfing down dinner, then rehearsing and rehearsing and abruptly, finally, inevitably, the seven of them are huddled backstage, waiting for the limelight. 

Jaemin’s trembling ever so slightly, gnawing on his bottom lip even as he tries to act confident in the semi-darkness. “You alright?” Jeno slides over, the first time they’ve talked since he ungraciously punted him in the leg. “Everything will be okay.”

“It will,” Jaemin grits a smile back. “We’ve been dreaming of this since forever, so it will.”

Jeno awkwardly takes his palm in his, and squeezes firmly. “It’ll go great. We’ve rehearsed this so many times.”

“Group hug!” Mark whispers loudly before Jaemin can even respond. He leans forward when they’re all gathered. “We’ve got this guys - let’s make this an amazing debut for us, and an amazing time for everyone. Palm in, palm in-”

And just as they’ve stacked their palms, going “Yo Dream!”, Jaemin hears their name being announced, and there are hands, words, goading them into the open. Before he can process that this is truly, _truly_ happening, the unforgiving light floods in and so do the feverish fanchants. Then _Chew-chew-chew-_ and he’s whizzing about, hands aloft, like he was born to perform.

It’s all over in a flash. The fluorescent technicolor, the crowd shrieking and clawing for them, the disco-hued thrill that washes over Jaemin like a saccharine drink. He’s got his first taste, and lapped it up he did - Jaemin loved every single moment of it, the effervescence, the attention, more than he thought he would. In fact, he’s addicted. 

He’s grinning from ear to ear, high off the spectacle, barely even registering the way Jeno smiles at him impossibly bright. This was just what he expected, what motivated him on his darkest days when nothing seemed to go right. It’s like he now had everything in his palm, everything he wanted and asked for.

The team is singing, whooping, all jittery and electrified when they’re ushered back to their holding room. It was an amazing performance indeed, a perfect performance on all counts that galvanized the entire studio rabid on their feet. 

Barely does the door shut than Haechan roars, “WE DID IT!!!” and the room goes into a frenzy. He throws himself into Mark’s arms, Chenle leaps towards Jisung screaming, “You did so well, Jisung-ah!” and Jisung yells back, “Chenle they screamed so loudly for you!” whereas Renjun grips Jaemin in a bone-crushing hug, chittering excitedly. “Did you see how the crowd was? They didn’t even put down their lightsticks!” Even the staff are infected by their energy, and beam wide-mouthed at the huddled bunch of teenagers.

Jaemin catches Jeno staring at him from the corner of his eye, and wades over through the frantic mass of elbows and excited squeaks to grab his forearms. “Jeno-ya, we did it!” he squeals, beaming through every pore. “What we’ve been dreaming about all these years!” 

His eyes are gleaming too, glossy like children's marbles. “Not yet,” he murmurs back.

Jaemin laughs. “What? Are you already-”

Jeno doesn’t let him finish his sentence because he plants his palms around the younger boy's glowing cheeks and dives right in. When Jaemin finally takes stock of what’s happening, Jeno’s warm, soft lips are already steady against his.

He widens his eyes in shock - _WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING_ his brain is screaming - but Jaemin doesn’t pull off Jeno. He can’t, he physically can’t - his lips won’t let him. Instead they clamp down instinctively on Jeno’s bottom lip, wet and plump, the first time someone’s lips are on his. 

He has zero experience in this field - he doesn’t even know where to put his hands, so he blankly leans forward into the messy heat while Jeno tightly holds his face in place. After what seems like hours Jeno sticks his tongue into his slightly parted lips so he does it back, and he tastes Jeno for the first time, familiar and sweet and smelling vaguely like his bed. Their teeth clash clumsily but their tongues keep on dancing, each new frisson sending shivers down Jaemin’s spine. 

_So this is what kissing feels like,_ Jaemin's chest thumps, his seventeen-year-old frame wracking with adrenaline. His head is spinning, there’s a loud voice telling him this is wrong, so wrong, he should stop, yet there’s something about how good, how right it feels that keeps him licking into Jeno’s mouth for more, stubbornly lapping up what tastes like home. In fact, Jaemin thinks he might be addicted to kissing too, right until someone shrieks all the way across the room into his reddening ears. 

_“What the fuck - are Jaemin and Jeno making out!?”_

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> revised the rating for this chapter (and the ones to come) - underage drinking and sexual references ahead! all ages are korean ages by the way.

**6.**

Chenle hollers with his entire body, eyes blared, nostrils flared, right index finger pointing straight at them. 

It’s as if an invisible beam sparks out from the tip of his finger, whizzing right past unsuspecting noses and raised eyebrows as the room scrambles to react, searing upon impact with Jaemin’s cheeks as he and Jeno hurriedly shove each other away and affix their eyeballs wherever else they can. Jaemin’s gasping for air when he finally locates the incredulous Chenle, _goddamn_ Chenle, then realizes everyone else, the Dreamies, the staff and the managers, are all staring at them, mouths agape and eyebrows arched in varying states of confusion. Even their makeup artists in the middle of packing up hold their brushes in mid-air, watching them in disbelief.

The room is silent. And his lip is scarlet, stung swollen for the world to see. 

Jaemin doesn’t look at Jeno, but he already knows the perpetrator’s face is already buried in his palms, those calloused palms that held him securely in place mere seconds ago.

It’s on him now, to save what’s left of his reputation, what career of his that bloomed mere hours ago.

He lets out a slight giggle, tries to make it sound natural. “Oops I got carried away. I’m so proud of everyone I couldn’t resist giving everyone a kiss.”

Dramatically he brushes his hair back with three fingers, letting the words settle like snow. “Chenle, you’re next.” He smolders, pointing gun fingers at the no longer-incredulous but downright mollified boy.

“No way- Don’t come near me.” Chenle backs into the corner in slow-motion.

But Jaemin makes his aerial advance anyway, all arms and legs charging across the room like a fighter jet at the younger, showering noisy kisses over the thrashing boy who shrieks in distress. 

At this point the room finally decides it’s funny, and collectively points and snickers at the spectacle, the suspicious looks softening into mirth. And just like that, life resumes.

 _Thank god,_ Jaemin pulls himself off Chenle when the ambient noise returns to a suitably buzzy level. His heart is still pounding, the redness of his lip betraying the suave arch in his shoulders and the steel in his eyes.

“I’m telling you, if you do this again, I’m going to pee in your bed -” Chenle sputters, shakily smoothing out his shirt but Jaemin just mindlessly nods, not processing a word he says. Because out of the periphery of his left eye, Jeno’s still hunched limply in the corner, face downcast, palms covering his eyes.

Jeno doesn’t move for a few long seconds, not until he silently slaps his right cheek and blinks hard and fast, swiftly sidling over to Jisung and Renjun. Jaemin notices everything, every little detail about Jeno, including the cloudiness in his eyes he can’t blink away, all the while Chenle blabbers indignantly at him. 

They don’t talk about it, mostly because he makes a conscious effort to steer clear of Jeno. Each time the older boy hovers near, wringing his hands and angling his neck to catch his gaze Jaemin slinks away, puts a few metres between them and a few bodies too, for good measure. He also deliberately spends more time stationary in bed (which means, virtually all his waking hours now) and locks the door until it’s deadly necessary for him to venture into the open, like to the toilet. And even when his bladder is screeching, he scans the corridors first to make sure Jeno’s not around. 

It’s not until Jisung throws a big fuss one day about how _he_ keeps locking him out of _their_ room which they _both_ share that Jaemin buries himself under his duvet and ponders to himself, _why am I going to such lengths to avoid him?_

Is he scared?

Or worse still, because he actually liked it? Liked … kissing his best friend?

 _Shit._ Jaemin thrashes around in the dark, eliciting an annoyed _What now?_ from the already-disgruntled Jisung who’s gaming furiously on his phone. _Mind your own business!_ he shoots back, but dread is filling his veins, black icy dread that counter-intuitively makes his stupid heart beat faster. Under the sheets his breath is thunderous in his ears, and his mind slips again, phantom lips warm and tactile against his ...

 _Stop it!_ he yells exasperatedly as he kicks away his blanket and his eyes meet light, Jisung’s pale face staring back at him as if he were mad. _He’s really going insane,_ Jisung frantically mutters to himself before hastily burrowing under his own duvet, but Jaemin doesn’t bother correcting him.

Instead he reasons with himself, convinces himself with abundant hand gestures that he’s avoiding Jeno because he just doesn’t know what to say to him. Because it was weird. Because Jeno made it weird. For him, for them, so it’s just _weird_ for him to bring it up, first. 

_You know you’re in denial, right?_ some part of his brain mocks him, but he pushes it out before it can sink in, crying out once more and squirming back in bed. Jisung grips his blanket tighter around him. 

His denial lasts only about a day, because the entire Dream team is scheduled for a dance practice, and work is work. Jaemin barely even notices Jeno approaching him midway through his practice because he’s so engrossed trying to perfect this ridiculously complicated move, this high-speed leg motion thing, that when he feels a tap on his shoulder, he instinctively creases his forehead and whizzes around irritatedly mouthing _What?_ And then he realizes it’s Jeno’s forehead staring back forlornly at him, the older boy’s eyes transfixed on the ground.

“I’m sorry.” Jeno mumbles, wringing his hands in discomfort.

“What for?” Jaemin tries to play it cool.

“For that day... “ the boy stutters, eyes still on the wooden floor. “That day at SBS. Sorry if I made it weird.”

Jaemin lets out a sharp laugh, startling even himself. “Weird? Nah it wasn’t weird. It _isn’t_ weird. We were just too excited because we debuted.” But he’s wringing his hands too, eyes roving around desperately for an excuse.

“But you- it feels like you’re avoiding me,” Jeno mumbles on.

“Avoiding you? How could I be?” He's laughing a bit too loudly again, trying not to choke on his words. “You’re thinking too much.”

Then he spots Chenle - this time his _saviour_ \- and frantically jabbers, “Oh, sorry, I had to tell Chenle something -” and before Jeno can look up or hold onto him or make him feel even more guilty or kiss him again he’s sprinting, bolting all the way across the room towards the other boy who’s casually waltzing through the door.

He doesn’t look anywhere but the door, doesn’t think anything else apart from the fact that he is obviously, undeniably, _in denial_ , such that when a startled Chenle looks up and asks him _What?_ , he doesn’t have any words to give. 

That night Jaemin dreams of a man. He’s warm and sinewy and all unctuous curves, and for some reason he’s in Jaemin’s bed, too. But Jaemin - or rather the Jaemin in this other story, this other timeline - doesn’t baulk. In fact he seems more than accustomed to his presence, because this man’s fingers are all over his bare chest, running over his abs and tugging down at places he’d rather not describe. 

And this Jaemin, this Jaemin which might actually be him, loves it. Because he’s kissing this nameless man mindlessly, sloppily, giving him his every ounce of Jaemin. And his own fingertips are traversing cavernous canyons too, skirting skinned ridges and descending into nether valleys where light doesn’t reach. 

He’s enjoying this a bit too much, this alternate Jaemin. There’s something maddeningly, mind-blowingly good in the way this mystery man is touching him, how every tendril and inch of his skin responds, fiery and alive and completely sexual. 

And this man, this unnamed man, is fucking _amazing_ at kissing. _Is he even human?_ Jaemin wonders to himself at some point because this magic he’s working with his lips, how he casually brushes the tip of his tongue against the roof of his mouth, how he breathily growls each time Jaemin moans into his open warmth - it’s superhuman.

There’s heat pooling in his gut - Jaemin feels it swimming and eddying - and just when it bubbles too much this man pulls off his mouth to groan too, to cry out into the weightless night - and Jaemin finds that it’s nobody else but his best friend, Lee Jeno, face scrunched in want.

He wakes from the shock.

Jaemin lays flat, heart racing and shivering in his duvet in the soggy heat of September. He’s definitely alone in this dimension, his outstretched toes coolly tasting the air. Yet there’s an unmistakable wetness between his thighs, dribbling like a warning. He doesn’t have to check to know.

 _Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckety fuck,_ is all he thinks.

Of course when everyone’s sitting in a circle, Jeno has to sit smack opposite him, hair messy and eyes soft.

Promotional activities for their debut have finally ended, and one day when Mark and Haechan linger by their dormitory, devoid of 127 activities, Chenle creeps into the living room with an overstuffed black plastic bag in the crook of his arms and a devilish grin plastered on his face. 

Jaemin doesn’t see it, doesn’t quite hear the initial uproar because he’s busy being an introvert holed up in his room. But he can’t ignore the subsequent rapping on his door, not especially when it’s Mark, fingers threading through his hair, fidgety and urgent.

“Look at the shit Chenle dragged in,” he blurts the moment Jaemin flings the door open.

When he paces into the communal living room, still annoyed he had to pause his song mid-chorus, he finally understands Mark’s apprehension when an inordinate number of white cans and a few grey ones sit like menagerie on the floor.

“But we’re all underage!” Jaemin raises his voice at Haechan and Chenle, who have already cracked open cold ones and are slurping away happily. “Our Jisung is just fifteen!”

“Don’t be such a prude,” Haechan fires back cheekily, wiping the fizz off the edge of his mouth. “We’re finally done with all the music shows, and all the interviews and performances - this is a _celebration_. Besides, it’s mostly just beer.”

“I even got soda for Jisung,” Chenle motions towards the towering bottle of cola in the corner. “And for you killjoys if you’re too law-abiding.” 

The two miscreants fist-bump and take conspiratorial swigs from their rapidly-depleting drink canisters, smacking their lips in satisfaction. 

“But - but we have a dance practice tomorrow!” Mark’s fingers are doing laps through his hair helplessly. “What if we turn up drunk, or hungover, or something?”

“Please Mark - it’s at 4pm. And we’re not even learning anything new - it’s just routine practice,” Haechan rolls his eyes. “You can always just sit in the corner and police us while we enjoy ourselves, if you'd so like.”

“Renjun? Jeno?” Mark pleads at the others seated expressionless by the other side of the room.

Renjun deliberately averts the oldest boy’s gaze as he gingerly reaches out for the nearest can. “I’ve always wondered what alcohol tastes like.”

“Me too.” Jeno doesn’t falter, grabbing an adjacent can.

Jisung keeps mum, quietly sipping on the plastic cup of Coke he helped himself to already.

 _Five. To two._ Haechan gleefully gesticulates towards Jaemin and Mark standing crossly in the hallway.

“Jaemin?” Mark almost begs him.

But our protagonist is distracted admiring how Jeno suavely twists open the aluminium tab in one fluid motion, decisively chugging down half the can in one go. 

_I could use some alcohol too,_ Jaemin mumbles to himself as he ungainly plonks himself down and latches onto an errant can.

Mark stares defeatedly at his compatriot, betrayal writ large in his eyes. “Fine. But you guys better not drink more than three cans each. And we’re ending this before midnight, got it?”

“Got it, got it,” Haechan rolls his eyes again, this time so much his sockets are white, “Mr. Bible Evangelist.”

“You’re a terrible _hyung_ ,“ Mark mutters under his breath, to which Haechan smiles sweetly.

But three cans are all it takes to wreak havoc, especially when it’s your first time.

In no time a circus is underway - their gestures are rowdier than usual, there’s a slurring confidence in the way their voices reverberate around the room, and the laughter has an edge of metal.

The beer tastes like shit, but at least it takes off some of Jaemin’s trepidation. He’s even giggling now, poking fun at the others, nearly back to his usual self.

It’s Renjun who suddenly proclaims with a jagged smile. “Let’s play truth or dare. We haven’t done it in ages.”

Chenle smacks the floor. “I’m going to make all of you spill your secrets.”

Jaemin feels the blood in his face, the world humming a bit too pleasantly to be right. This was going to be a bad idea, but even he knows there’s no way to get out of it, not with the others already huddling close and studying which cola bottle spins best.

 _I’ll just have to survive this._ He looks at his watch. It grins back at him. _Just under two hours and I’ll be free._

Jaemin slides into the remaining space left. Of course Jeno has to be seated diametrically opposite him, irresistible as always. Perhaps even more so now, with his hair slightly unkempt and the edges in his face sharper, more deadly. Jaemin flicks his gaze astray before Jeno can find out he’s staring, before impulse gets the better of him.

All too soon the empty plastic bottle is alive, spinning and rattling a bit too animatedly. It lands capfirst at Chenle, who proudly says “Dare” and unceremoniously gyrates his ass to Haechan’s raucous laughter. Jaemin grits a smile and brushes a lock of hair off his forehead. _This was going to be a tough two hours._

Renjun tells everyone his greatest embarrassment (“I peed in my pants in kindergarten”) and Jisung gets away with an easy one (“I like Winwin hyung the best because he takes care of me”) but when the bottle points to Jeno, Haechan plants a palm firmly on the ground, silencing the group.

“We’re switching it up. It’s _wayy_ too boring,” he declares, to Jaemin’s grimace. 

Jeno stares at Haechan emotionlessly.

“When was your first kiss?”

A hushed _Ooooohhhhhhhh_ fills the room, a few of them doing double takes. Jaemin is one of them. He doesn’t want to know.

“Don’t tell me, it’s when you kissed Jaemin that day?” 

Jaemin swivels around to glare at Chenle, who gurgles in laughter, then cowers slightly when he realises the older boy shoots him a death stare. The rest turn to Jaemin, then Jeno, surveying the duo with barely concealed interest.

Jeno bites his lip. “No.” He shakes his head.

Jaemin feels something like relief, but he isn’t sure what it is. Jeno never told him he had kissed anyone before.

“Then who was it?” Chenle presses, neck cocked forward like a tortoise.

“Ningning.” Jeno blinks. 

“What the heck? That rookie from China with the really small face and long black hair?” Mark covers his mouth in shock.

“Wah… she’s really pretty. How did you even … Lee Jeno?” Renjun mumbles aloud, looking at Jeno in newfound respect.

Oh, Jaemin knows very well who Ningning is. He’s seen her slinking around the SM building a few times, long porcelain-white legs and an unmistakably gorgeous face. Once or twice she shyly waved to Jeno when she crossed paths with them, flashing her killer smile.

That feeling rises up his esophagus, bubbly and tasting like spit. His ears are ringing, so much that they block out whatever brief shitty elaboration Jeno feeds the hoi polloi.

Jaemin knows what’s fizzing in his gut now. It’s jealousy. 

_No wonder he took my lips without any hesitation, even if it was just for fun. No wonder he’s so good at kissing._

_She’s prettier than I’ll ever be._

“Jaemin!”

He snaps out of his funk, the others all peering curiously at him. 

“It’s your turn to answer the question,” Haechan jabs at the bottle, its red cap loud and crested towards him.

“Truth.”

“What about you?” Chenle curls his lip, shoulders propped against the sofa. “When was _your_ first kiss?”

“Me?” Jaemin feels every ounce of blood in his body flush to his face in one go.

_I can’t tell them I lost it to Jeno. That it was actually me who lost my first kiss to him that day. When he said it meant nothing, when it meant nothing to him._

“A-a-” he stammers, “Arin.” 

_God he just made the cardinal sin of lying during truth or dare. But God would understand him, wouldn’t he?_

“Arin?” Mark fumbles aloud, again. “Our classmate back in SOPA?”

He claws for an explanation, any logical explanation. He doesn’t know why Arin’s name came to mind, but it was the only one that did. One that was far enough to avoid verification, close enough to be true.

“It.. it was an on-the-spur thing. We were working on a project once, and it was late -”

Jaemin stares straight into Jeno’s eyes when he delivers his made-up fairytale. There’s surprise in them, certainly. Maybe even some hurt, he can’t be sure.

But he soldiers on. He can’t back down, not when it comes to this.

“I can’t believe you guys are so wild.” Jisung pipes up from his corner once Jaemin’s done with the wondrous narrative he might have just shamelessly plagiarized from a webtoon drama he watched some time ago. “To think I believed you were so innocent. I haven’t even kissed anybody yet.”

“I can be your first,” Chenle puckers a face at him, but Jisung pushes him away, rather forcefully.

 _They bought it._ Jaemin watches as the whole room erupts in laughter, even Jeno who seems to be smirking at the youngest two.

He exhales slightly before spinning the bottle. It circles and turns, turns and circles … right back to him.

The empty funnel-shaped bottle hovers, wobbles slightly, but it’s undeniably him.

“Me again?” Jaemin stretches out to re-spin, but Haechan’s faster than him. “Truth or dare, Jaemin?”

“But I just answered!”

“It doesn’t matter. Truth or dare?”

“Truth,” Jaemin sulks to himself. He wasn’t going to shake his butt. 

Renjun giggles. “Okay shoot shag marry.”

“Taeyong, Doyoung, Jaehyun,” Haechan rattles off right after Jisung, grinning fiendishly. 

Jaemin gasps and covers his mouth. Haechan he had expected, but he can’t believe _Renjunnie_ just threw him under the bus too. “But… but they’re our _hyungs.”_

“Okay - Jisung, Haechan and Jeno then,” Chenle chimes in, his voice cool like steel. 

“What the fuck!” the room erupts, Haechan grabbing onto Chenle’s collar and Jisung kicking the criminal’s shin. Yet amidst the chaos, the other six boys are still looking expectantly at him, boring their scandalized eyes into his. Jeno does too, holding his breath.

“This is _bloody_ incest,” Jaemin retorts unkindly. “And guy-on-guy incest, by the way.”

“Dude, it’s just a game-” Chenle chuckles out, somewhere underneath Haechan’s fist. “I just wanna hear your answers.”

The room falls silent, all six pairs of eyes trained on him.

Jaemin shifts uncomfortably, rearranging the way he crosses his legs. “I really have to answer this?” 

No one speaks. They’re clearly expecting a response. 

_Fuck._

“I- I- I’ll have to m-marry Jisung,” he stammers out. “He’s virtually my son.”

Jeno’s craning his neck so intently at him, all thoughts of subterfuge thrown out of the room. His eyes latch onto some part of Jaemin’s soul, prying away the meat, searing in deep. There’s a hardness in his face, in his tall hooked nose that strikes Jaemin somewhere between lust and rapt, rapt fear. 

He had secrets to keep. And Chenle wasn’t going to get them out from him today.

“A-and- I guess I’ll shag Haechan. Because we’d be too grossed out by each other to even touch or do anything. So nothing would happen.”

He flicks his gaze to the floor, expecting Haechan to outwardly cringe or cry out in disgust - he’d rather live with that - but he doesn’t get that satisfaction. 

“And you’d kill Jeno?” instead he blurts out, incredulous, more than startled Jaemin chose him. “For me?”

“I guess so,” Jaemin stares at his outsized palms, turning them over again and again, back and forth. 

_But you two are close,_ resounds like an unspoken tremor throughout the room. _Best friends. Since young._

“H-he’ll understand. Won’t you?” Jaemin stammers, mustering the courage to gaze back at Jeno.

There’s definitely pain in Jeno’s eyes now, raw and watery. He looks like he’s teetering on the edge of losing it, Jaemin recognizes, like the time he almost broke down when he found out his grandmother was in hospital.

He feels a sharp, serrated pang of regret in his gut, but sometimes there are words you can’t just take back, moments you can’t just rewind. 

“Mmm.” Jeno grunts, lips firmly pressed together. His shoulders are shaking from the sheer force of holding it in, his breathing labored. Then he looks up at Jaemin with all of his chest, all of his wide, hazel-hued eyes. “I do,” he says.

Jaemin crumbles apart, not on the surface, but deep down in his chest, deeper and more inside and more violent. Like bookshelves collapsing and imploding, the volumes splaying their pages in the mayhem, coming down like rain. 

“Guys, it’s just a game,” Chenle splutters, worry clouding his voice. “Let’s move on.”

“Yeah, let’s spin the bottle again-“ Mark moves hurriedly, rubbing his hands together as he watches the empty thing carousel itself frenetically. 

“It’s me!” Haechan exclaims when it lands facing him. “Dare!”

But even his ministrations and well-injected bouts of humor (Haechan chases Jisung down, and plants a fat kiss on his cheek, which he wouldn’t normally have done) barely chips away at the brooding tension in the room, the discomfort that whirs like a fan.

Jeno’s irises are still red, and midway through Mark’s attempt to whistle he whispers “Toilet” and never comes back.

Jaemin watches the bottle spin and spin until the red of its cap fuses with Jeno’s bloodshot eyes. The quiet hangs like fog. 

Jaemin wakes up with throbbing temples, the afternoon sun parsing through the grilles like a barcode.

 _I’m never drinking alcohol again,_ he promises himself as he gropes around for his coat, then the doorknob.

The short stroll to the studio chills him awake. The trees are nearly bare again, the air faintly wintry and lilting with the char of chestnuts. It’s almost November now, but in this limbo where the leaves still cling onto branches the wind doesn’t yet sting, and he breathes freely.

He feels almost alright when he throws the studio doors open. Then he sees Jeno’s puffy eyes and the headache’s back with a vengeance, more violent than ever.

Jeno’s evidently trying not to let it show, lips drawn into a slight upturned line. But his irises are rimmed red, eyelids undeniably swollen. The others might have interpreted it as the aftermath of last night’s misdemeanor, but Jaemin knows it’s something worse. 

After all, he’s the one who has been beside Jeno, every day, for four whole years. 

He’s the felon with the unsheathed dagger, eyes unblinking in the morning when it’s over.

Jaemin resists the urge to engulf Jeno in a tight hug, whisper soft words like he used to, like Jeno used to for him.

He was better off alone. Him and Jeno, separate, like this. After all they were adults now.

Class commences and the music rolls in like thunder. The boys glide into formation, bodies already remembering every movement, each tic.

Jaemin barely processes how he whirls across space as the melody swells and blocks out any residual noise. There was a reason why he loved dancing so much, why he chose to do this as a living.

But today just as he squats into his ending pose, his legs betray him. Suddenly his feet are rubber, his right knee is buckling under the weight and his body's careening, centrifuging beyond control. His thighs are numb and so is his brain, because this isn’t supposed to happen.

He finally feels something when he makes impact with the paneling, red hot poker pain that shoots out like lightning from the small of his back. It engulfs him, his everything, his consciousness.

“Jaemin!” the others scream when he cries out in anguish, a rag doll discarded on the floor.

The last thing he remembers is Jeno’s panicked face, frantically shouting his name while gripping some part of his arm, eyes globed crimson. Then everything succumbs to black, black numbness. 

  
  



End file.
